Heritage Auctions currently has a very rare Australian Daybill for the Universal Horror Film Mark of the Vampire currently up for auction.

 

It will be very interesting to see how much this sells for as posters for this title are incredible scarce.

 

I am guessing this will become the highest selling Australian poster at an auction.

 

 

The story of how the poster surfaced is interesting. It was actually listed a few months ago on eBay along with two other long daybills as a lot. The bidding reached approx $450.00 with a couple of days to go and suddenly the seller ended the auction. It seems fairly obvious that someone made him an offer outside eBay and he accepted it. The possibility is that the seller was unaware of the rarity of the poster and it is more than likely that he undersold it.

 

I know of a number of people who were well aware of the rarity of the poster and who had intended to bid on it had the ebay auction been allowed to run its course. I have no doubts that it would have achieved a very high price if the seller had just let it go to the highest bidder.

 

The poster turned up at Heritage a couple of months later and was restored and listed in the current signature auction. The information I have is that the consignor of the poster is not from Australia so I have to wonder how much he or she offered the eBay seller to end the auction. I have no doubts that many others would have quickly emailed the seller when the auction ended pointing out the potential value of the poster or making other offers so you would think that the seller might have been able to change his or her mind after the original offer was made.

 

No doubt the original owner of the poster will be disappointed in the decision that they made. I think that there is a very real possibility that the poster would have achieved very close if not more than it goes for in the Heritage auction.